


shelter

by yoogiboobi



Series: a place to return to [3]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: And love, Established Relationship, M/M, and comfort, bathing together, feelings of warmth
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-20
Updated: 2020-11-20
Packaged: 2021-03-10 03:55:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,953
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27557968
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yoogiboobi/pseuds/yoogiboobi
Summary: “Hey,” Shinsuke greets, lingering in place for a moment. It’s been raining for the better part of the day; his hair is damp and the tip of his nose is dusted pink. “Mind if I join you?”Atsumu stretches his limbs not unlike a cat, then sinks lower in the water, flaunting just how comfortable he is, right there, soaking in the warm bath. “I’d love nothing more,” he says, because it’s not like he’d purposefully timed his bath to Shinsuke’s arrival—not at all.—Shinsuke arrives home from work—a little tired, a little cold.
Relationships: Kita Shinsuke/Miya Atsumu
Series: a place to return to [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1974127
Comments: 22
Kudos: 163





	shelter

**Author's Note:**

> reminder that all the works in this series are set in the same universe.  
> and a note in case you’re not familiar with the concept of a bath room: in japan, it’s common for the toilet and the bathtub to be in separate rooms. so there’s a small room for the toilet, and a wet room/bath room, where the tub usually is (and maybe a sink). there’s also an open area where you can shower before you get in the bath! they’re not all that common in western houses, at least not where i live. 10/10 for hygiene tho.

—

The front door slides open and shut. Shoes scuff against the stone pavement of the genkan, followed by the padding of slippers on wooden floor.

“I’m home. Atsumu?”

“In the bath!”

One, two, three footsteps, and the bathroom door slides open just enough for Shinsuke to peek his head around it. Curious chestnut eyes land on Atsumu submerged in the tub.

Atsumu smiles at him. “Hey, you. Welcome home.”

“Hey,” Shinsuke greets, lingering in place for a moment. It’s been raining for the better part of the day; his hair is damp and the tip of his nose is dusted pink. “Mind if I join you?”

Atsumu stretches his limbs not unlike a cat, then sinks lower in the water, flaunting just how comfortable he is, right there, soaking in the warm bath. “I’d love nothing more,” he says, because it’s not like he’d purposefully timed his bath to Shinsuke’s arrival—not at all.

The corner of Shinsuke’s mouth quirks up. “I’ll go fetch us clothes. Be back in a minute.” The door shuts closed again when he steps back.

Atsumu has never grown into the habit of bringing fresh clothes with him into the bathroom, but as the temperatures drop and the house gets colder, he often regrets it when he finds himself waddling his way to the bedroom, naked and shivering, with nothing but a towel around his waist to uphold his dignity. Shinsuke has long caught onto it.

Atsumu drains some of the water out so it doesn’t overflow when Shinsuke gets in, then leans back and lets his head loll onto the edge of the tub, eyes following the steam that rises up to the ceiling and twirls around the room like morning fog. Through the window above him, which he’d cracked open to air out some of the stuffiness, high treetops swing from side to side over the stormy grey backdrop of the sky. Rain seems to have stopped for the moment.

Shinsuke returns not long after, carrying two neat piles of clean clothes. He places them in the cabinet below the sink, one of the few places in the room where they’re not at risk of getting wet. He’s shed the heavy jacket and scarf he’d been wearing just a minute ago, as well as the black turtleneck Atsumu had seen him putting on earlier that morning, leaving him in a thin long-sleeved shirt and pants.

Atsumu watches him take the rest of his clothes off. Piece by piece, bare skin comes into view—first his torso, then his legs, then he’s naked. Pretty, with his pink-tinted elbows and knees and nose, with his tanned neck and hands, with his careful manners as he neatly folds the pants and tucks the shirt into the laundry bag.

He steps under the shower head to wash himself. Now that he’s closer, Atsumu is able to trace constellations on his skin as he watches the soap and shampoo suds gliding down his body—the mole on his collarbone, the mole next to his belly button and the other one just below it, the mole on the side of his thigh, the scar on his knee from when he was younger. He can trace a few more, has them all mapped out in his mind, has kissed each and every one of those spots a thousand times. From the slope of his neck to the line of his back and the dainty curves of his legs, Atsumu has every part of Shinsuke committed to memory, but he’ll still marvel at him over and over again for as long as he’s allowed to.

Shinsuke is watching him in return when his eyes travel back up. Atsumu is just as bare as him, just as exposed, lying in the tub of crystal clear water.

“You’re beautiful,” Atsumu says when their eyes meet, merely giving shape and sound to the words in his head.

Shinsuke smiles, sweet, just as comfortable in his nakedness under Atsumu’s rapt attention as if he were dressed. This is neither the first time he’s hearing those words, nor is it the last. The shower head is turned off. Shinsuke wipes excess water out of his eyes and off his hair; Atsumu scoots back in the tub to make space for him.

“Shouldn’t I sit behind you instead? Might be easier on your back,” Shinsuke comments.

Atsumu has been dealing with chronic low-back pain for the past couple of days. Every few months, it comes back to torment him. It’s a pesky little thing, though it’s rarely serious enough that he needs to stop playing for long periods of time, if at all. This time around, a weekend off, some Kinesio tape, and warm baths are doing the job.

Atsumu shakes his head and nudges Shinsuke closer to the tub by the wrist. “‘s fine, don’t worry about it. C’mere.”

Shinsuke goes, because he trusts Atsumu to know what is best for his body. He dips a foot in first, testing the temperature, then eases his body into the water when he deems it appropriate, settling between Atsumu’s legs. Shinsuke leans his back against his chest, gently, nearly weightless in the full tub, and Atsumu secures him there by locking his arms around his middle. Their bodies fit together with practiced ease, and soon they find themselves comfortable against each other.

Shinsuke breathes a sigh with his whole body. His ribcage expands and deflates with it, and Atsumu feels it between his arms. The sound of it echoes off the bare cream walls, mingling with the tiny sound of water droplets dripping from Atsumu’s hand as he brings a hand up to caress Shinsuke’s jaw.

“Tired?” Atsumu asks.

Shinsuke hums. “And cold,” he adds, then lifts his hands out of the water and presses the back of his fingers to Atsumu’s cheeks.

They’re freezing cold.

“Shinsuke, _what the hell_.”

He covers Shinsuke’s hands with his own and dips them back into the hot water. But his fingers are just the start. Atsumu brushes their feet together—his toes are gelid. His ear is cold where it presses against the side of Atsumu’s warm neck. There’s the slightest tremor in his body, too, that the short shower hadn’t been able to chase away.

“You’re freezing. What happened to you?”

“It’s cold outside,” he explains, but Atsumu senses there’s more to it. “And water got in my boots this morning but I didn’t have an extra pair of socks, so I walked around with damp feet all day.”

A shiver runs down his back and Shinsuke curls in on himself, as if he’s reliving the feeling. Atsumu can’t tell if it’s from the cold or from the warmth that’s finally coming back to him in waves. He whines pitifully at the sad thought of Shinsuke in wet socks and sinks them both lower into the tub, until Shinsuke is submerged up to his neck in blissfully warm water.

“Why didn’t you call me? I would’ve brought you dry socks.”

“I was fine for most of the day, there was no need. Only really got to me when I was coming back home.”

“Still, you could get sick!”

“I’ll be fine.” He gives Atsumu’s hands a squeeze. “Trust me.”

Atsumu whines quietly but doesn’t argue further, because if Shinsuke tells him to trust him, he does. He busies his hands with massaging warmth back into Shinsuke instead. He kneads his fingers, one by one, knuckle by knuckle, squeezes his palms and applies pressure to all the right spots, stimulating blood circulation and releasing pent up tension from a day’s work. Shinsuke melts against him, closing his eyes with a happy sigh.

“How was your day?” he asks.

Atsumu’s hands move up to massage Shinsuke’s arms and work the knots out of his shoulders as he comments the picture Aran had sent them from Tokyo earlier that morning, tells him about his adventures drilling drainage holes into a few terracotta pots Shinsuke had brought home a few days before, about the fallen leaves he’d raked off the engawa, and the weird bugs he’d found crawling underneath. Shinsuke chimes in here and there while Atsumu prattles on, though he’s content with remaining quiet for most of it, listening, turning pliable under Atsumu’s hands as he’s kneaded like soft dough.

“You’re the injured one here, you know,” he notes when Atsumu bends his leg up to his chest and squeezes his calf muscle. First the right leg, then the left. Shinsuke’s head turns to whisper against the corner of Atsumu’s jaw, “I should be the one taking care of you.”

“You’re the one who spent an entire day in damp socks, out in the cold.” Atsumu reaches for his feet next and presses Shinsuke’s pink toes between his fingers. They’re a lot warmer than they were before. “Besides, I have an athletic trainer to look after my injuries. She takes care of me, so I can take care of you.”

Shinsuke chuckles at his logic but doesn’t dispute it, preferring to keep nosing at Atsumu’s jaw instead.

“Feels good, my love. Thank you.”

 _My love_ —the two words of spoken affection so rarely uttered by Shinsuke that Atsumu can probably count with the fingers on his hands the number of times he’s been on the receiving end of them. So rarely, blood never fails to rush to his ears every time Shinsuke speaks them with no little amount of tenderness. Today, he complements it with a kiss, their first real kiss of the day that isn’t the brief peck Atsumu felt being pressed against his lips that morning, while he’d been still half asleep, and Shinsuke had been about to leave for work. This one now is mellow, without haste, a slow-danced kiss.

Through the open window, rain can be heard in a slow crescendo; it sprinkles on the tree leaves and the wood of the house, makes nature sing in a myriad of different voices. Rainy days sound different here than they do in cities built of concrete and brick, or in forests inhabited by different species of trees. This rain that drips on the windowsill right now sounds of oaks and cedars and cypresses and one lonely ginkgo tree; it sounds like home.

The pink of Shinsuke’s nose has travelled to his cheeks. The tremor under his skin has long faded. Atsumu’s diligent ministrations have made blood rush back to his extremities, causing the tips of his fingers and toes to tingle with warmth. A pleasant sort of languor runs in his veins, turning him soft and sleepy in Atsumu’s arms. Atsumu feels it too; his touches turn feather-light and aimless, with no real intention behind them other than to feel the shape of Shinsuke under his fingers.

In this sheltered, peaceful state, they talk and laugh and kiss in hushed tones until the water turns lukewarm and their fingers prune. After they’ve climbed out of the tub and patted themselves dry, Shinsuke reapplies two stripes of kinesio tape on Atsumu’s lower back, then finishes it off with a kiss to his nape. They cover themselves from head to toe in flannel pants and knit sweaters and thick socks, and their trusty old hantens keep them warm when they venture out of the steamy bath room and enter the significantly colder kitchen.

Outside, night falls and so does the rain; out the windows, there’s nothing but dark blue and pitch black. Each new November evening brings colder temperatures than the one before. Soon, the first hints of ice will come. But in their warmly lit kitchen, while Shinsuke sets to brew tea and Atsumu cooks hot soup for two, they feel none of it.

—

**Author's Note:**

> (i promise i'm working on other things that aren't just mindlessly soft atsukitas,, this universe is just so cathartic to write,,)
> 
> as usual, comments are v appreciated  
> wishing you feelings of warmth and comfort in these troubled times ♡ [twt](https://twitter.com/yoongoboongi) | [graphic](https://twitter.com/yoongoboongi/status/1329857953327968257?s=20)


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